I believe that the big drama of aerospace enthusiasts today is watching the huge success story of the Dual Asteroid Relocation Test Vehicle (DART) hitting the Dimofos asteroid of binary system . At least this is the case in my own circle of friends, and even classmates and friends who don’t understand aerospace and astronomy at all are also going crazy. When the Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) cheered, I also thought it was a great success for NASA and ESA. The topic of DART hitting asteroids is too hot now, and I will talk about it separately if I have the chance in the future. However, while DART news dominated the screen, the space launch system (SLS rocket) located at Kennedy Space Center had to return to the assembly hall (VAB). However, this incident did not attract great attention. For NASA, a veteran of media operations, this time it felt like he was secretly repairing the plank road and secretly traveling to Chen Cang.
SLS rocket successfully returned to VAB factory 22-9-27
About 3 days ago, I once posted that NASA hoped to try to launch Artemis One on September 27, but then the next day NASA overturned its statement and canceled the launch on the 27th. Whether to launch on October 2 depends on the operating data of Hurricane Ian, which was not named at the time. According to NASA, as long as the wind speed is not higher than 174 km/h when the hurricane hits, the SLS rocket can stay on the launch pad without returning to VAB, otherwise it will have to roll back. Finally, on September 26, NASA made a difficult decision. In order to protect the rocket from being affected by the hurricane, SLS needs to be transported back to the assembly hall to avoid it. The Rockets' rollback operation started at around 11:20 noon on the 27th Beijing time, and the whole process took about 11 hours (in fact, when this article was published, the SLS Rockets had successfully returned to the VAB factory at around 21:45).
Ancient crawler transporter transport SLS rocket
NASA said that data from close cooperation with NOAA and other institutions in recent days showed that Hurricane Ian had no intention of weakening. At the same time, in order to have enough time to prepare employees, it was decided to transport the SLS rocket back to the final assembly plant. NASA does not expect the time to re-ship the rocket on the launch pad, but it is certain that the rocket will replace the flight termination system (FTS) in VAB to deal with the certification of the space force, and will also inspect some of the rocket's systems. After all, the rocket has been on the launch pad for more than a month. In addition, several of the 10 nano-cube satellites carried by the rocket are already in a state of loss of power, but this time the rocket transported back to VAB is likely to not disassemble the connection between the Orion spacecraft and the above stage, so the fate of these nano-satellites is not optimistic.
SLS Rocket's last night on the launch pad
Some people say that NASA is a good show directed and acted by itself. I don't completely deny this. At least when everyone knows that the hurricane is coming, NASA must have breathed a sigh of relief. A very important point is that in the certification issue of the FTS flight termination system mentioned just now, the system's guidance module is powered by a battery, and the prerequisite for replacing the battery is to disassemble the rocket. Under normal circumstances, the space force would only give a 20-day certification, but for the launch on September 3, it was extraordinary to extend the certification time to 25 days. At that time, the media said that this had reached a limit. A few days ago, NASA negotiated with the Eastern Mountains to extend the certification to October 2 after the launch of the rocket, and delayed it for another 30 days. This is actually unreasonable in terms of reliability. After all, destroying the rocket and intercepting the missile, , is not exactly the same. Moreover, the rocket was left on the launch pad for more than a month, and each subsystem may need some additional detection. Maybe it was really used to use this hurricane as a step, so it went down to drag the rocket back to VAB.
According to NASA's convention, after the SLS rocket returns to VAB on the 27th, the detection work will last at least half a month. That is to say, the first time the rocket returns to the launch pad may be in mid-October, and it will take at least 10 days to get from SLS to arrive at the launch pad and then complete the preparation before launch. In other words, if everything goes well, the SLS rocket is ready for launch next time is about late October.The next lunar orbit window will open from October 17 to 31, but other identified missions cannot be launched between October 24-26 and 28, and the window for SLS to launch in October is only 3-4 days. So if you are not careful, the SLS Rocket's first flight will slide to November, and the November lunar launch window will open between the 12th and 27th.
